Hostelworld "categories"

You know, I opened this thread to spur some debate and thought on this issue. Looks like that happened.

Happens every time you put the word "Hostelworld" in the thread title!

It has been an illuminating and somewhat humorous experience. We've had some had some pre-christmas digressions (egg nog related?) about situations such as, for instance, an eco minded somewhat haunted family of travelers surf down a mountain to a Japanese beach hostel so they can watch the remote/out of the way pride parade and then party the night away in an adventure theme park, we had the HI National sales director (predictably?) not quite get it and probably rightly tell us it wouldn't effect them much, a VP of hostel operations state a LOVE for the classification system (but not why?), and a rehash of old thread solutions to the hostelworld review juggernaut.

Hahaha! This is Daily Show material! :D

The Hostelworld review system remains supreme.

It remains supreme as long as it has the supreme number of reviews, but it can be improved - and should. There are cities with more than 100 hostels, with many of them specialized in this or that: by comparing the average ratings you can narrow down your selection only somewhat, but being able to identify "categories" (either hostel categories or categories of users who rated/reviewed them) would make the whole thing a lot more user-friendly.

But then, we can of course only wonder what their real intentions are. God and HW move in mysterious ways...

Think about this angle. I believe that this classification system will be used by Hostelworld and the affiliated booking sites to create and sell targeted advertising programs to advertisers/providers

They have been trying to sell tours since a very long time. I don´t see how this ever made good money for them, nor can I see how it will - but let´s see.

Hostelworld (as part of Webres Int) the company was recently aquired. The first thing a new owner should do is either cut costs or improve revenue to pay for aquisitions.

Correct. Did you notice they just started to put together decent non-English versions of their site? The German version of HW used to look embarrasingly like Google-translated, and "Hostelworld.de" was owned by a little hostel in Berlin, which probably got immense traffic by snatching up that domain for a few bucks. Now, they have straightened that out (and proudly tell us the German site finally starts to generate fantastic sales) and they´re working on other languages, too.

I think they have identified that to be their biggest potential.

This initiative will strengthen their financial hold on our customers, reduce overall revenues for many, many hostels, allow many new providers into the sandbox.

How would this reduce our revenues? Please explain. :confused:

All well run companies improve their core products no-doubt. So we can always look for improvements in ranking, appearance, sorting and language translation improvements etc. Like it or not there are a relatively finite number of hostels in the world and by extension a relatively finite number of alternate accommodations that backpackers will choose. Hostelworld has all the hostels in the world listed already. So where do they grow from?

Language translation? There are also a relatively finite number of languages where website translation will have huge gains, this is low hanging fruit and should have been done when the first non-english speaker made a booking, while important and sizable it is a short term gain.

All well run companies look very hard for revenue diversity, revenue improvement, deeper market penetration and market potential. All well run companies should also understand what their customer could potentially spend their money on and how much they have to spend when they are making the buying decisions. Product development and value added offerings become the next horizon.

In answer to the revenue reduction question.

Take how Google uses instant demographics data. Google's advertising model does pretty well using IP based, gmail scouring, web browsing, search engine analyzing methods of data collection for demographic ads and offers. We have all seen the typical google ads all over HW sites. When HW first introduced this it was somewhat clumsy and non-focused. Now the ads are better targeted and for instance competing booking options rarely show up for instance. The addition of more real data gives HW a commission based revenue stream using real time demographics on a virtual platform.

Here is an example. Bob the backpacker creates a Hostelworld account (Bob123) that shares very direct, detailed demographics with Hostelworld, somewhat hidden of course behind a (currently not so secret, it turns out) user name. Many bookers do this as it saves them 2 bucks on future bookings by eliminating the booking fee. Even if they don't, the demographic information is still usable but less detailed. Now Bob123 decides to go to check out Munich and searches for a hostel on the main site for Munich. Then Hostelworld presents categorized hostels with the help of hostels or even backpackers as to type. He sorts for party hostels (his google ads change at this point, but many people ignore them and HW only gets ad impression revenue from this anyway. So he decides to book with Wombats (for instance, could be USA Hostels San Fran or ACBB Niagara by the way). He logs into his account and his ads now change to very specific ads based around his HW logged preferences from previous visits. He sees them but probaly ignores them (google ads will still be there but less emphasised. Then he makes the booking.

Boink! goes the HW ad/offer machine, Bob now gets very targeted offers based around his itinerary, his demographic, his perception of what he wants, the potential of new products, ongoing transport specials, the exact location of the hostel, these are very targeted offers and due to the scale of HW these offers in many cases could have huge discounts not easily obtained by hostels, even big ones. HW then says tick this box and your credit card will be securely debited in the same transaction. (anyone that has used GO Daddy knows exactly what I mean by this type of sales)

Just imagine this scenario. Bob123 vs Smithfamily321. Because Bob likes adventure, party hostels he could get offers based exactly on his age demographic, past booking/purchasing behaviour. He could get a discount coupon for the restaurant next door to the hostel, he could book a bike rental from the shop across the street, he could book of a great deal on a beer hall tour, he could book a helicopter tour, he could book a city tour while Smithfamily321 only sees targeted offers based around the hostel type they select. This is easily location specific too. Both could have onward travel purchased as well. Bob on the Contiki and the family in a rental car for instance. No commissions at all to hostels. as... All this is accomplished prior to arrival at the hostel.

These demographic necessary purchases naturally would have been handled with the guest standing in front of the tour desk or hostel reception at the hostel. Yes I realize that HW already does this in a limited fashion. But with categorized hostels it gets even easier to do. I believe that this is the single largest growth opportunity ongoing for Hostelworld by an incredible amount.

Basic large company corporate growth mechanics operate thusly. Have a great idea, expand, expand, expand based on access to capital and market opportunity. Expand through building/hiring/ or through purchase, use your current management strucrure to operate purchases. (Convince hostels to join or buy other booking sites for instance) Once you are ubiquitous in the market then start looking at low hanging fruit within your current market/opportunity. Sell company. New company comes in, cuts costs related to rapid expansion and/or develops entirely new revenue streams using current infrastructure of course. Take public. Then eventually go broke and be resurected as a private, lean company or in some cases a governement entity. This always works when you have a functioning, measurable revenue stream like hostelworld.

I think I will select "Ryokan Hostel" and "Onsen Hostel". I have no idea what that is, but it sounds funny.

- Me too, lol

Anyway, we've noticed the clasification while we were uploading new property, and didn't get it. We were thinking that it was our ignorancee that we do not know what is Ryokan and Onsen, but it appears that most of people don't know :)

We think that hostelworld should make either bigger and more accurate list, or let the hostels write down what they think represents them best, and after some poll, make the cut and get the 10 best ones, simple as that :)